31 December 2016

This year has been ridiculously intense, hard, and
frustrating... but I've managed to do some things -- channeling my rage into
creation. I've pushed myself as a writer, poet, and artist -- and this project
was visioned, created, and produced all in this year since the summer. In July,
I had an amazing week at the VONA/VOICES Writers of Color Workshop - Residency
with David Mura. This was life changing for me a writer and it gave me the
tools I need to push myself, my craft, my artistic writing self. I am
grateful. Out of that powerful experience, I went into another writing retreat with my
SPACE crew in Tobago - and Cosmic Evolution was born. I wrote a short story
that I then began to vision as a mixed media installation -- and I submitted a
proposal to the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas call for their 8th NationalExhibition. I was accepted :) and the piece grew and transformed into what you
will see below.

Close Up of Sculpture - representing Cosmic Evolution

"Cosmic Evolution" is a speculative fiction experience and multimedia
installation about how we vision futures for Caribbean and African Diaspora
peoples. Inspired by Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Caribbean
mangroves and sea, I ask what is our Earthseed vision of the future? This
artwork is my response and provocation for us to create wildly and boldly. To
seriously think about our survival and possible futures given the continued
assault on on Black, Brown, Migrant, Same-Sex loving, Queer, and Women's Lives
and the earth. The sculpture is a small-scale model of the evolution of our
beings and escape to the stars. (I must give a shout out and sincere gratitude
to my dearest friend Shalini Seereeram for her help with design and materials for the sculpture. She is boss artist and has design magic!) The rest of
installation includes 18 photographs, 11min 11sec video with mangroves and
storytelling. My work is inspired by the Mangrove forests of Trinidad and Tobago and created
through deep reflection of how we vision our Caribbean futures. I am thrilled
to be featured in the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas 8th National
Exhibition - OFFSITE at Hillside House. I went home on 16th December to Install
the piece and also had the fabulous opportunity to share the work at the
opening reception on the 17th and offer a reading/performance. Here are photos and some reflections of the opening and this experience of creating Cosmic Evolution.

“The Destiny of Earthseed is to
take Root among the Stars.”
–Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Cosmic Evolution is a provocation and speculative fiction experience
about how we vision our futures for Caribbean and African diaspora people –
Black, Brown, Migrant, Same-Sex Loving, Queer, and Women especially. This vision
began with a journey through the Mangrove forests in Tobago and deep reflection
on Octavia Butler’s dystopia novel Parable
of the Sower (imagining her creation of community survival through Earthseed).
It also emerges through the painful social and racial climate we are surviving
in the past few years of a so-called post-racial world (and the rise of Black
Lives Matter and Migrant Rights movements globally in response to overwhelming
violence, fear, and hate). And it comes to life thinking through the backlash
against Caribbean feminist and women’s movements for gender and sexual justice
and the continued struggles for gender and sexual rights and freedom for
Caribbean sexual minorities (LGBTQI) and gender non-conforming people. Cosmic Evolution is about survival and
possible futures given the continued assault on Black, Brown, Migrant, Queer,
and Women’s lives.This mixed
media installation shares a future vision of marginalised people evolving and
relocating to Space after spending
nine years under the mangrove forests of the Caribbean Sea. The future
storyteller (griot) explains the process of this cosmic evolution and how
people transformed and took flight to the stars, which is made possible through
the magical infusion of cultural artifacts, ancestral spirits, earth and sea vibrations,
and mangrove swamps. Cosmic Evolution
visions a future decolonised, where our minds, bodies, and spirits feel whole;
a future unbounded to capitalism, where communities thrive in harmony and
healing rooted in love and acceptance; a future where we co-exist with the
earth and all living creatures; a future where we are sexually, spiritually,
and socially free – with consent at the root and restorative justice the path.
To create our own possible Earthseed Future, we must do the work of pulling
from the past and present to evolve. This project seeks to ground us back into
the earth, sea, and ancestral memory, to reimagine the tools we need in order
to create better, possible, and livable futures.

What is your Earthseed Vision of
the Future?

Cosmic Evolution - Mixed Media Installation at Hillside House

Close Up of the Sculpture

Video surrounded by Photographs of the Mangroves which inspired my story

I took these photographs of the Mangrove Forests in Trinidad and Tobago.

I worked with NAGB Chief Curator Holly Bynoe to place the photographs and create this collage style effect.

Description of the work to accompany the installation

Promo for the Opening Reception and Reading at Hillside House

Reading at Hillside House for the Opening Reception -- NE8 Offsite.

I offered a Ritual after the reading/performance of my story Cosmic Evolution -- I opened the space with ancestor blessings and acknowledgement of land and people here before us. After storytelling, I shared my manifesto and Earthseed visioning of this new Earth/space and the kind of community I would want to create. I asked participants to join me in visioning of our Caribbean futures. I invited them to write down on pieces of fabric what magical artifacts or objects they would take with them AND/OR what kind of community or new world they would create. Each person left their message near the sculpture. And I gave each person who contributed a seed to keep with them for future visioning. It was a powerful ritual of exchange and visioning for me as an artist. This was my first solo performance art piece and I am forever grateful to the staff and curatorial team at NAGB for this amazing opportunity. I want to especially give thanks to Holly Bynoe for creating spaces and expansive visioning for what art is and how we can engage community. Thank you Holly! 💜

The sculpture with offerings from participants after the ritual

Close up of some of the offerings

Engaging the work - friends and family :)

Another Promo for the Opening featuring one of my photographs of the Tobago Mangrove Forest

Description of NE8

NE8 OFFSite Artists

Grateful for this experience and being able to share my art at home :)

Another view of the photographs and video.

I am also very grateful to be in the region these past few years -- teaching, working, living, and in the struggle for Caribbean freedom. Trinidad and Tobago is an ancestral home for me and is also now feeling completely homespace. I am happy to share my Cosmic Evolution first in my birthplace/home Nassau, Bahamas, but as it was created in and inspired by sweet T&T I will also be sharing it in Trinidad - soon soon!happy new year blessings & conscious vibes.may this new year bring renewal & fortitude for continuing struggles & resistance.choose our weapons wisely. vision boldly & stay rooted. conjure freedom tools. be defiant.peace love blessings in abundance! and more from me in 2017!Angelique (sistella black)

13 December 2016

for
those of us on the frontline,
waging battles, survivors of violence,
for Caribbean women and girls,
for Caribbean people who live and love
outside gender and sexual norms,
(especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex,
queer, and gender non-conforming folks)

These
past weeks of sharing painful stories, we have broken depths of silence,
Broken, we are not, broke open, we are, not damaged beyond repair,
We are breaking silences with fyah raised fists and voices beaming,

we listen, we hold, we rage, we bawl, we scream, we remember.

We share our own stories. Sometimes we don’t share. Sometimes we can’t. This
is time to bear witness. We share in this unearthing of our stories of sexual
abuse, harassment, assault, and violence. We wonder how to move forward. How to
escape. How to process. How to cope. How to stop this violence. How to hold
each other accountable. How to live and love. How to be whole again. How to
heal.

Krystal Nandini Ghisyawan and I have been asking these questions
over the past few years through our co-created art and reflection projects on
gender-based violence (GBV) in the Caribbean. This year, we decided to focus on
breaking silence and healing.

For
survivors of violence especially women and people who defy sexual and gender
norms, I hosted a healing workshop at Wholeness and Justice Counselling Centre
in Trinidad on 9 December. I created this workshop to facilitate healing space
for those of us most affected by gender based violence. This session focused on
women, LGBTQI folks, and gender non-conforming people because we experience the
brunt of hetero-patriarchal violence. These forms of violence affect us all but
women and sexual minorities experience gender based violence
disproportionately.

As
the #LifeinLeggings movement grows across
the Caribbean, we must create more spaces for us to find healing. We
have opened up wounds, we have shared painful memories, and we are bearing
witness to each other’s pain. How do we process these feelings and memories?
How do we support and protect each other? How do we channel our anger, pain,
rage, and sorrow into creativity, language, and action? How do we manage loved
ones reactions, feelings, and pain upon reading our stories? Can we create
change and transform our societies, communities, and families? What is
possible? Inspired by Audre Lorde's poetry and essays, my workshop seeks to
open space and use creativity for healing and transformation.

I
share here on consciousvibration the goals, rituals, and creative
exercises I developed to create space for healing and sharing. We had a
powerful and hard session on Friday – with nine of us – sharing, writing,
creating, and thinking through these questions of how we transform silence into
language and action. I will be hosting more of these workshops soon – and some
folks in the group want to meet up regularly.

The
Goals of the Workshop: For survivors of gender based violence, to release and
find healing through creativity and to transform silence into language and
action.

Defining
Self Care:

A self-initiated, deliberate act to establish and
maintain physical, mental and emotional health.

Creating spaces for reflection, healing, community
building, and balance.

Cleansing Healing Breathing Practice

To release stress and emotional build up; To cleanse
the body and regenerate; To clear the mind - ground and center self.

Writing
and Art – Creativity as a Path for Healing (channel rage into
creation)

Anger expressed and translated into action in the service of
our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of
clarification.Anger
is loaded with information and energy.–Audre
Lorde “Uses of Anger”

We have
opened up wounds, we have shared painful memories, and we are bearing witness
to each others' pain. How do we process these feelings and memories? How do we
support and protect each other? How do we channel our anger, pain, rage, and
sorrow into creativity, language, and action? How do we manage loved ones
reactions, feelings, and pain upon reading our stories? Can we create change
and transform our societies, communities, and families? What is possible?

My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not
protect you.–Audre
Lorde “Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”

As
survivors of gender based violence – we often push down the painful memories and this can create
a separation of selves – especially if it happened to us as children or teens.
We may have split and silenced parts of our selves to survive and cope.
Sometimes these are necessary strategies but long term can be damaging. Here
are some creative exercises to communicate with your other self or selves built
for survival and coping – for healing and transformation.

Creative
Exercises as pathways to healing:

1)
Stone Reflection (Earth – grounding self)

Pick
two stones – one as a reflection of your inner self or child self and the other
as the self you project to the world or your adult self. Write about each stone
and how they reflect these parts of you. Describe the surface, the edges, the
feelings that each stone evokes in you. Let the power of the earth come through
the stones. Feel how they ground you. Share your reflection.

2)
Love letter or drawing to child-teen-younger self (Air and Water – for healing)

Use
the elements of Air and Water – as a metaphor for channeling messages to your
younger self: write a love letter or create a drawing for your younger
self.

And
of course I am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and
action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger.

We
can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned
to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect
fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in
silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of the silence will
choke us.

The
fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break the
silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not
difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to
be broken.

Vision
your own transformation piece with FYAH – create, draw, paint, colour, write
poetry, or anything you want to make with your hands -- transform feelings,
anger, sadness, grief, pain, silence into something new that will incite, will
speak, will draw upon your energy and live beyond you.

About Me

WriterArtistTeacherScholarActivistPoet. Community Worker. Subversive Radical. Cynical Idealist. Polyrhythmic lover. Cosmic Warrior. Afro-Caribbean. Black. Woman. Trouble Maker. Revolutionary Intellectual in Progress. I have been womanish, long time, and so I dare to imagine a world where people of color can be human and free. I dream and breathe revolution and liberation on many fronts—sexually, spiritually, economically, socially, and radically. I see hetero-sexist patriarchy and white supremacy as preventing movement and advancement for humanity.